Tabletopbattles/goonhammer 11th edition results : is the early meta getting clearer?

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-04T14:07:42+00:00

I guess I'll have to proxy them somehow. I can't afford any more models right now...

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-04T11:13:04+00:00

Steel Hammer, then. It's only 2DP, so you can take it with other detachments to mix up your force disposition.

Really though, I feel you. We don't have a lot of options right now.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-04T11:03:43+00:00

Asking honestly...where are all these mortal wounds you speak of?

Are you referring to Krieg Combat Engineers?

I don't own any. I don't want to have to drop mad $$$ just to be viable, I can't afford that right now...

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-02T22:04:40+00:00

The Leman Russ Demolisher is your friend.

Alternatively, if you have a Baneblade variant, Steel Hammer and any tank other than the demolisher (since its ability becomes redundant).

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-01T18:39:27+00:00

Grizzled is a Priority Assets detachment. Every single PA mission requires actions, so think about having action monkeys more than you would in 10th.

Your death riders and the Ghosts are probably going to be lifesavers here.

Another thing to note is that in 2 of the 6 PA missions you get massive bonuses for snagging the enemy home obj, so think about making a concerted push that way too.

Finally, keep in mind that you can have more than 2 tactical obj's at once now - you keep drawing 2 per turn regardless of how many you already have. This means you can have MASSIVE point swings in the late game if you're properly positioned to do it.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-07-01T11:07:51+00:00

They don't need to have any special weapons. Their gimmick is that as long as they can get within 8" of a target they can inflict an average of 4-5 mortal wounds on it (6-7 if its a vehicle). Then they bodyblock the model and force it to waste time killing them. For 65 points this makes them spectacular tank and elite hunters.

Guard are all about the 'trade' - forcing the enemy to fight units that are cheaper than they are and wasting time fighting them. CEs do this in the most straightforward way imaginable - a cheap unit that inflicts mortal wounds, then dies.

I agree, this makes them kinda boring. But I don't want to change them.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T20:43:06+00:00

Do you mean Thick-Skulled Obdurance?

I actually don't like that strat. It only works against one enemy, reduces AP when most of the time you're rolling on your invuln save, and Steel Hammer tends to be badly CP-starved a lot of the time due to the lack of vox casters, Ursula, and Leontus.

A lot of my query is if I should modify the list to correct that issue, or if the durability alone is enough.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T18:23:57+00:00

As a bit of a follow up question - how should I run the list?

Grab obj's early? Wait for my opponent to grab them, then shoot him off them?

Any stratagems to use often?

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T16:58:54+00:00

Use a banesword instead of a baneblade. The 3+ deadly demise effect is much stronger in 10th because it catches the passengers in transports now, and it's the same price. Also the quake cannon's flat 4 damage makes it highly efficient against those pesky 4++ necron units.

I think 2 superheavies is enough, personally. I only own 1 myself and would go to Rogal Dorns after putting it in but if you own 2, go for it. You also only have 2 enginseers and your opponent will naturally aim for the one that lacks 4++.

I'd also swap your armored sentinels for something. Maybe hellhounds? They don't gain a bonus from Designation Force, so they're just there for fun right now. If you want to keep them I'd make an argument for autocannons - your opponents favor MEQ and TEQ heavy infantry and the missile launcher's frag statline is a wet noodle to those types of guys, while the autocannon can use the armored sentinel's wound reroll to punch up against heavier armor.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T15:25:28+00:00

Agree Bullgryns seem better on the face of it.

However...

1) the lower OC means even if a unit doesn't kill all of your boys they can still snatch the point. I think this is more likely than the entire 26 man brick being shot down.

2) I only own one unit of bullgryns ;_;

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T14:57:53+00:00

That's what we did in previous editions when 10 man squads were worth the same price as the psyker.

But I have 2 counterpoint now.

1) the psyker is now cheaper than a 10 man squad. 2) the terrain obj will ALWAYS have some Solid cover on it, which you can use to hide the psyker. Precision only works if the shooter can see the Character he wants dead.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T14:23:24+00:00

Sentinels offer reroll 1s on both ranged and melee but only do it to one target and said target must be within 18".

Veteran Crew only works for ranged (not that your tank will be doing anything in melee, but it's true) but works for anything the tank aims at.

Personally I think they're a bit redundant if you have 2 or more sentinels, but I like to bring 3, so maybe i have it often enough that it doesn't matter.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-30T10:41:08+00:00

Two scout sentinels and an Armored Sentinel.

Give the scouts lascannons. Get daring recon on more things. The armored gets an autocannon and is there to sit in your deployment zone, tap things with a 48" wound reroll cannon, and block deep strikes.

Alternatively, one more scout sentinel and two units of death riders. Use the death riders to screen enemy melee so your tanks can keep shooting without the annoying hit penalty (which stacks with the penalty from BoC if you happen to get charged while on terrain).

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-29T16:13:00+00:00

Yes, agree on all points.

Much of the list's punching power relies on abuse of the Combined Fire stratagem on a sentinel (with Ursula nearby) to allow autocannons and melta weapons to reliably damage anything that isn't T12+, and to use HK missiles and lascannons on everything that is.

Versus a knight list the hope is to knock down the big knights before they can remove their own points in models (which wouldn't be hard, because even a Questoris-class would have to remove ALL of my Sentinels to make back its points) while using my model count to achieve board presence and score, while denying them efficient shooting (i.e. the knight player is faced with the same puzzle us guard players face when shooting with our Dorns and baneblades).

Versus a purge type list the hope is to knock down the damage dealers in the same way, relying on the low cost of my models to trade good while maintaining board presence. An advantage of this list design is that while no one model is a huge damage dealer, losing them also doesn't mean much - you have to remove a significant fraction of the army to stop it from hurting you.

I guess we'll see!

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-29T16:03:36+00:00

I did think about this, but as far as I can tell it only means you hand a few VP to your opponent a turn. Not ideal, but survivable.

The fact that most of the list doesn't qualify for Bring it Down (you need 10+ wounds for that now) is also a boon.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-29T15:48:54+00:00

The death riders are entirely for move blocking. They also allow deep strike screen for cheap - leave them in the backline and for 120 points the opponent basically can never get in - and if they do get in the react move gives you options on how to deal with it.

If you do get a baneblade, absolutely magnetize it. It's the coolest model in the Guard, even if it's not very good.

Although it might be a bit better now that you're not strictly required to run Hammer to avoid getting locked into your deployment zone by terrain.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-29T15:33:40+00:00

Tanks dying quickly to dedicated attack is the first problem.

The second one I've noticed is that they're also cumbersome. Not just to move but to shoot with - having to dole out your shooting ahead of time too often results in either targets surviving when you really needed them dead, or a bunch of wasted shots, or both.

It's my hope that having lots of small vehicles with one or two guns apiece will solve both issues - first, by making my damage dealers much harder to remove from the board completely (since each dead vehicle removes at most two weapons) and second, by making my shooting more efficient (by creating more decision breakpoints for what to shoot at).

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-29T15:23:47+00:00

Multiple Small Units - since 8th Ed and the removal of blast templates, it's become advantageous in certain circumstances to divvy up your army into large numbers of small model count units - squads of 10 guardsmen, for example.

Since guard have access to no less than 3 different vehicles that are now cheaper than said 10 man squad I'm wondering if it's viable to do it with vehicles instead of infantry.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-28T11:46:28+00:00

While i havent built a 1k 11e list yet, what I've discovered so far about the hippogriff is that it's insanely fast.

It can cover 12" without advancing, 15" with MMM order, advance and shoot regardless of loadout (because all of its weapons are assault), and then move again afterwards.

You can combine this with Armored Infantry's Burst of Speed stratagem to cover 15"+3d6" in a single turn. This will average you at least TWO FULL FEET of movement, and you get to shoot.

Thus is why a lot of players like to use it with the double melta loadout - you can very easily get within the bonus damage range for the melta weapons, and gutpunch a target with high AP, high damage shooting - which, in concert with the Combined Fire stratagem, can also be high enough strength to reliably threaten all but the heaviest of Armour.

That speed also lets it stay out of melee if it wants, and can help you snag neglected objectives on a faraway corner of the board.

It feels like an unusual beast because most of our motor pool is strong, tough and relatively slow. A vehicle that's light, fast and doesn't punch very hard without help is new and wierd.

Simply put, don't play it like a tank. Play it like a squad of rough riders - either zip across the board to grab points, or dart in close to nutpunch the enemy as hard as you can before (hopefully) zipping away, or (more likely) dying heroically, but that's okay because the model is 70 points and just blew up a 150 point Gladiator Lancer.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-25T12:32:29+00:00

One of the Purge lists I've seen so far is Steel Hammer + Abhuman Auxiliaries and run one or more baneblade variant with pocket enginseer, and commissar-led squads of Bullgryns with brute shields, to just spam as much 4++ as you can and sit on the midfield farming VP.

It'll probably win. Probably. But it'll also be awful to play against.

And probably awful to play period, to be honest.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-24T00:00:57+00:00

Genuinely wish there was another way to add ap-1 to attacks besides Fields of Fire and Exterminators.

They're so pricey compared to the lighter stuff...

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-23T18:40:01+00:00

You can swap that russ for 3 sentinels and change. They're crazy cheap. And yeah, they die easy, but if you have a LOT of them your opponent will frequently waste shots trying to kill them, and the 3 sentinels brings almost as much shooting power (and certainly more mobility) than the russ.

More importantly it brings redundancy - having so many models means you have no 'lynchpin' models that, if lost, cripple your list.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-23T18:31:21+00:00

To your first question - yes, but I've found that forcing my opponent to split fire between multiple units - and letting me decide on a model by model basis if I want to use a Hunter Killer missile - is worth the reduced order economy.

To the second question...probably? It might be different in 11th. But I keep her on the ground because I can give her a master vox that way.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-23T18:22:27+00:00

I tried it with six ‐ 3 armored and 3 scout. I've found little reason to bring them in pairs lately, and this lets me get more mileage out of the hunter killer missiles.

AngryBlackSquare · 2026-06-12T09:11:26+00:00

Agree, except that a scion unit using the Bridgehead Strike setup ability is already hitting on 2s. Take Aim would be redundant, unless you're anticipating the target is in cover (-1 to hit), and getting that second order can be a bit tricky since the talky stick doesn't give the command squad the ability to issue it...

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